The Hapoel Jerusalem soccer club will mark the 100th year of its establishment with a new logo featuring a likeness of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Hamas hostage murdered in captivity.
Goldberg-Polin was a devoted fan of the team, and the image is based on a well-known photo of him brandishing the flag of the Hapoel sports association, whose name means “the worker” in Hebrew.
The sports association was founded in 1926 through Israel’s Histadrut labor organization as a rival of the Maccabi movement. Its original crest displays a variation of the communist symbol, showing a hammer and sickle with a boxer.
On Thursday, the team publicized its new centennial logo, along with video clips of its devoted fan base through the years that included the image of Goldberg-Polin holding the Hapoel flag at a game.
Goldberg-Polin was a devoted member of the team’s fan brigade through his teenage years.
When he was taken captive on October 7, 2023, members of the fan brigade were part of the intensive struggle to get him released, flying the Hapoel flags at rallies and protests, creating giant banners of his visage in the red -and-black Hapoel colors to hold at games and events.
@HapoelJLMfc is so much more than a sports team; Hapoel Jerusalem is a community that blends sports with values and social action. It is remarkable that their just-released official logo for the 2026 100th season is Hersh. Yalla Hapoel! pic.twitter.com/XsxrKdaKTU
— Jon Polin ג’ון פולין (@JonPolin20) May 15, 2025
Last week, Hapoel Jerusalem soccer coach Ziv Aryeh, after his team secured its position in the Israeli Premier League, spoke about the remaining hostages and Goldberg-Polin in his post-game remarks.
“In my opinion, the league shouldn’t resume next season if the hostages haven’t returned,” said Aryeh. “As far as I’m concerned, the country should be turned upside down until they come back. I’m not the prime minister — only the citizens can do something, because there’s no one else who will.”
Aryeh said there was no point in analyzing his team’s season.
“We dreamed of welcoming Hersh Goldberg-Polin back at Teddy Stadium,” he said.
It’s not (only) about you.
Supporting The Times of Israel isn’t a transaction for an online service, like subscribing to Netflix. The ToI Community is for people like you who care about a common good: ensuring that balanced, responsible coverage of Israel continues to be available to millions across the world, for free.
Sure, we’ll remove all ads from your page and you’ll unlock access to some excellent Community-only content. But your support gives you something more profound than that: the pride of joining something that really matters.
Join the Times of Israel Community
Join our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You’re a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘272776440645465’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
